It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice
"It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice" is the first episode in the first season of HBO's Watchmen, and first episode overall. It aired on October 20, 2019. Premise In an alternate America where police conceal their identities behind masks to protect themselves from a terrorist organization, Detective Angela Abar investigates the attempted murder of a fellow officer under the guidance of her friend and Chief, Judd Crawford. Meanwhile, the Lord of a Country Estate receives an anniversary gift from his loyal servants. Plot In the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, a young Will Reeves is sitting in a movie theater and watches a silent film about the black lawman Bass Reeves when an air raid siren and explosions are heard outside. Will's father comes into the theater to retrieve the child and his mother, the theater's pianist. Outside, the family navigates through the unfolding Tulsa Race Riot, witnessing their neighborhood being razed and black citizens being publicly executed by a mob of Klansmen. The father gives Will a note reading "WATCH OVER THIS BOY" and entrusted him with a black couple who are trying to flee Tulsa by car. Will is knocked out after seeing a biplane firebomb the building containing his parents. Will comes to after dark, on the outskirts of the city, and finds the black couple dead. He rescues a crying infant and walks away from the scene and tells the infant that she's going to be okay. He starts walking with her, but turns around and sees the whole town in flames. Almost a century later, on September 8, 2019 at 9:35PM, Tulsa police officer Charlie Sutton pulls over a pickup truck. The driver claims to be carrying lettuce, but Sutton notices a Rorschach mask that he has hidden in his glovebox, indicating that he belongs to a white supremacist group called the Seventh Kavalry. Sutton returns to his cruiser, patches himself through to the station, and has to ask the desk officer, Panda, to deactivate the maglock device that is keeping him from drawing his gun. The time-consuming process gives the driver enough time to sneak out of his truck and fire machine gun rounds into Sutton through his windshield. Police Chief Judd Crawford is notified of the shooting while attending an all-black production of the musical Oklahoma!. At the hospital, where Sutton has been placed in intensive care, Judd and a masked detective named Looking Glass speculate on why the Kavalry would attack the police again after three years of peace. Judd goes to Sutton's house to inform his wife of the shooting. On a TV screen, it shows a breaking news segment of Dr. Manhattan on Mars. He seems to have build and elaborate life size castle, only to destroy it shortly after. The following day, local baker Angela Abar gives a presentation to Topher's class, showing them how to make mooncakes. Taking questions from the students, Angela explains that she was born in Vietnam two years before it became a U.S. state and claims that she retired from the police force after being injured by the Kavalry during the White Night. A confrontational question by a white student about whether Angela's business was subsidized with "Redfordations" provokes Topher to attack the boy. Later, Angela and Topher's drive home is interrupted when an abnormal storm causes small squids to rain down on downtown Tulsa. When they get home, Angela's husband Cal informs her that she has received a page bearing the coded message "Little Bighorn," a reference to the Kavalry. Angela goes to her bakery, where she has a brief encounter with the now-older Will Reeves who cryptically asks her if he can lift two-hundred pounds. Inside the bakery, Angela gains access to a hidden room where she retrieves her police badge and dons the costume and weapons she uses for her masked identity, "Sister Night." She drives a customized car to a slum dubbed "Nixonville", where she breaks into a seemingly random trailer and apprehends its occupant. Angela then drives to the police station, where a department-wide assembly is watching a video threat from the Kalvary. Despite the protests of Panda, Judd invokes "Article 4" and allows free use of firearms by the police for a 24-hour period. In Judd's office, Angela confronts him about not being immediately informed of the Sutton shooting, and tells him that she has the trailer occupant in her trunk. The suspect is taken to a chamber called "the pod", where he is subjected to subliminal images while Looking Glass asks a barrage of questions, including whether he's involved with the Kavalry. When Looking Glass states that The Suspect is being deceptive, Angela forces him into a room and viciously beats him until he reveals that the Kavalry's hideout is located at a cattle ranch. After nightfall, Angela and the masked cop Red Scare infiltrate the ranch while Judd and another masked cop, Pirate Jenny, monitor the proceedings from a police-customized Owlship in the sky. Inside a trailer, members of the Kavalry are collecting watch batteries when an alarm tips them off to the police presence. Two Kalvarymen attack the cops with a truck-mounted heavy machine gun while several others attempt to escape aboard a single-engine aircraft. Angela manages to overpower the gunmen and enter the trailer, where she gets into a fight with a Kavalryman who is revealed to be Charlie Sutton's assailant. However, the Kavalryman swallows a cyanide capsule and dies before Angela can question him. Outside, Judd and Pirate Jenny pursue the Kavalry aircraft and manage to destroy it with the Owlship's flamethrower, but debris causes the Owlship to violently crash. Judd and Pirate Jenny survive. Elsewhere, in a remote country castle, Adrian Veidt returns from horseback riding. He is then seen sitting naked at a typewriter while being attended to by a maid, Mrs. Crookshanks. A butler, Mr. Phillips, presents Veidt with a robe and states that he has a surprise gift prepared to mark Veidt's "anniversary." Later, in the dining room, Veidt is presented with an ornate cake and a pocket watch that has been repaired by Mr. Phillips. Veidt informs Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Crookshanks that he has just completed a five-act play titled "The Watchmaker's Son", and tells them that they will be playing the leading roles. The three give a toast to the play. Judd and his wife Jane join the Abars for dinner. Judd briefly excuses himself and takes a hit of cocaine where the rest of the party cannot see him, but he is told to wipe the cocaine from his nose by Angela when he returns to the table. Jane reveals that Judd previously played Curly in his high school's production of Oklahoma!, which leads to Judd giving an impromptu performance of the show tune "People Will Say We're in Love". After the dinner, Judd and Angela talk about the discovery of the watch batteries from the Kalvary's hideout, made of a discontinued type of lithium that has been linked to cancer, which raises the possibility that the Kavalry is trying to build a dirty bomb. Meanwhile a commercial for the American Hero Story: Minutemen is heard saying how, “the clock is ticking. We’re running out of time. Evil is rising. Second by second we all cry out...” and while said commercial plays, it shows drawings of Captain Metropolis, The Comedian, Mothman, Dollar Bill, Silk Spectre I, and Nite Owl I. Later that night, Judd receives a phone call that Sutton has woken up, and is summoned away from home. On the way to the hospital, Judd's pickup hits a spike strip. Just as he realizes that he is about to be ambushed, Judd is confronted by a bright, rapidly-flashing light. Meanwhile, Angela and Cal are having sex when she receives a mysterious phone call instructing her to drive to a remote oak tree, where she will find something. Angela retrieves a hidden shotgun and arms Cal before she leaves her house. Upon driving to the oak tree, Angela is confronted by the same bright light until she threatens to shoot. Before her she sees Will from before, holding the note reading "WATCH OVER THIS BOY" -- revealing him to be the child who escaped from the Tulsa Race Riot. He sits next to Judd's body, which is hanging from the tree by a noose. Cast Main Cast * Regina King as Angela Abar/Sister Night * Don Johnson as Judd Crawford * Tim Blake Nelson as Looking Glass * Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Cal Abar * Andrew Howard as Red Scare * Jacob Ming-Trent as Panda * Tom Mison as Marco Maez * Sara Vickers as Erika Manson * Dylan Schombing as Topher Abar * Louis Gossett, Jr. as Will Reeves * Jeremy Irons as Adrian Veidt Guest Starring * Frances Fisher as Jane Crawford * Charles Brice as Charlie Sutton * Michael Graziadei as Carmichael * Jessica Camacho as Pirate Jenny * Wayne Pére as The Suspect * Geraldine Singer as Ms. Sweetwater Co-Starring * Jamal Akakpo as Bass Reeves * Landon Durrence as Adorable White Boy * Victoria Blade as Mom * Charles Green as Preacher * Lily Rose Smith as Rosie * Adelynn Spoon as Emma * Kyle McDuffie as Sheriff * Danny Boyd, Jr as Young Boy * Steven G. Norfleet as The Father * Alexis Louder as The Mother * Dajour Ashwood as Mechanic * Sasha Morfaw as Mechanic's Wife * Uyoata Udi as Curly (Oklahoma) * Teresa Jade Wilson as Farmer's Daughter (Oklahoma) * Jamie Miles as Nurse * Zsane Jhe as Roberta Sutton * Nicholas Logan as 7K Spokesman * Joe Sykes as Uniformed Cop * Gabrielle Manning as 4th Grader * Jay Amir as Curious Boy * Ethan Stormant as Tommy (Buzzcut) * Helena Hu as Girl * Joey Mekyten as One Kid Deaths * 34 Tulsa of Civilians (1921) * Will's Father and Mother (1921) * The Suspect * Lots of Cows * 1 Rioter * Carmichael * 3 Members of the 7K * Judd Crawford Gallery Screenshots S1 E1 Will.jpg S1 E1 Charlie.jpg S1 E1 Tulsa Police.jpg S1 E1 Looking Glass.jpg S1 E1 Angela.jpg S1 E1 Tulsa Police & Seventh Kalvary.jpg S1E1 Adrian massage.png S1 E1 Adrian.jpg S1 E1 wine and dine.jpg S1 E1 yellow mask.jpg S1 E1 luggage.jpg S1 E1 old man.jpg S1 E1 little girl.jpg S1 E1 moms.jpg S1 E1 sworn in.jpg BTS ScriptforEpisode1Part1.png ScriptforEpisode1Part2.png ScriptforEpisode1Part3.png ScriptforEpisode1Part4.png Nicole Kassell.jpg Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.jpg Damon Lindelof.jpg Jean Smart.jpg Jacob Ming-Trent.png Dustin Ingram.png Capture+ 2019-10-27-14-10-44 2.png Trivia * There are several references to the musical Oklahoma! including the premiere's title that's named after the lyric to the song "Pore Jud Is Daid". “He looks like he’s asleep, It’s a shame that he won’t keep, but it’s summer and we’re running out of ice.” * In an interview for the ComicBookMovie website, Damon Lindelof revealed that when the Watchmen tv series begins, Robert Redford has been the President of the United States for 28 years, cell phones and the internet have been outlawed, and costumed heroes are now banned. ** Fossil fuels, meanwhile, are a thing of the past thanks to Dr. Manhattan's time on Earth...however, rumours persist that he's hiding out on Mars. ** The police have been forced to don masks to protect their identities and can't use their guns without them being unlocked by a dispatcher first. ** Reparations (referred to as "Redfordations") have been issued for racial injustice but the country remains divided. ** When the series begins, many of the original characters from the graphic novel are believed dead or missing and the focus will instead be put on new character, Angela Abar, an Oklahoma detective who has adopted the superhero identity of "Sister Night." ** However, both Ozymandias and the second Silk Spectre are expected to factor into this story in some way. "WATCHMEN: New Image Of Jeremy Irons As Ozymandias(?); Damon Lindelof Reveals How The Show Tackles Race" - ComicBookMovie * At the 2019 New York City Comic Con several things were revealed in the panel for the new HBO series, among them: The Final Countdown to Watchmen Begins at New York Comic Con - HBO ** Rather than a second adaption of the Watchmen comic, Lindelof was more interested in exploring what happened after the events of the comic series. ** The first episode of the series was screened for the audience in attendance. ** The 7K are appropriating Rorschach's ideas. ** Most of the members of the cast hadn’t read the graphic novel before starting work on the series, but were won over by Lindelof’s enthusiasm and the scripts. ** King, received the pilot script in the mail along with a letter and a closed envelope. Inside was an image of her dressed as Sister Night. ** Jean Smart's character of Laurie Blake and Hong Chau's Lady Trieu will not be featured in the first episode. Although at the panel, the audience present were treated to a first look at both roles. ** Lady Trieu is an entirely new character and Chau described her as, "an enigmatic trillionaire businesswoman." ** Laurie Blake has a past linked with the graphic novel, and Smart talked about how her character was, “drawn into the masked vigilante world at a very young age. She has a lot of resentment for that whole culture, although a small part of her might miss it." *** The clip shown for Laurie had was from the third episode, and has her fly into Tulsa alongside another federal agent.Watchmen cast, creators preview HBO's 'extrapolation' of the iconic graphic novel - EW ** At the panel the cast & crew continued to play coy regarding who Irons is playing on the series. He was continuously referred to as “Probably Who You Think He Is”. ** Iron did reveal that, Damon gave him bits of a script which amused him hugely and made him think that, "This is a very interesting character," and that, “that man has such energy and enthusiasm, I don’t know what he’s going to do or make but if he thinks I can be of some help in this story then I’m aboard.” * The show visually references panels and images from the original text, even as it tells a slightly different story. * In the EW article, it mentions how Gossett plays a survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riot named Will Reeves. References *Redfordations - Assumed - Payment of money made to victims of White Night. The current President Robert Redford must have had some kind of legislation that paid out to victims of White Night. Those not happy about the pay-out nickname the payment "Redfordation", like the word reparations. *White Night - Assumed - A recent event in which black people/police were hunted down by the group calling themselves the Seventh Kalvary. 101